But I remember on our boat that one of the guys got right up on the front of it and put his foot on one of those mines and pushed us back, or else we would have been blown up too.Īlbert Clevette : And then we got hit on the ramp and it welded the ramp shut on one corner, on one side, but the tank was the first vehicle to go off and he hit the ramp, they loosened the cables and he hit the ramp and broke it free and it just dropped down and away we went off.įred Rogers: I watched the first SP go off, and I waited to see if the front end would raise up. John Hall : Practically all our boats got blown up or had to go back because of so much mines.
One man got crushed right between the, between the ship and the landing craft as we were trying to get in. James O'Neil : Then the first darn thing, "Wham!" I looked and here the ship broke right in two and the whole stern end of it right straight up.ĭennis Goodwin : From the big landing ships, you go into a small harbour ship, the landing craft, the small ones go down the rope, the ladder down the side of the ship. Harold Hague : They weren't interested in us as much as they were the ships that were behind us, the big ones, that's what they wanted. When I was coming down the chute, I could hear the guns going off. Norman Wright : D-Day we landed right in the middle of the enemy. James Edwards : You could see them looking down that they were dropping their gliders right in the, across the enemy lines and of course, they were just mowing them down. The LCI is a small, a small boat.įred Rogers : The barges were just buckling, bending, creaking, groaning and everything was soaking wet, water coming up over the side, oh what a mess.Īlbert Clevette : And we then got to the point you didn't give a damn where you were, you just wanted to get on shore, get off this thing. Robert Graham : We were landlubbers and everybody was sick on that LCI. Ivan Doherty : It was marked out where the landing ships were supposed to go you see, and the other battle ships, it was marked out for them to drop anchor and use their big guns, so everything was pretty well pre-planned.Įarl Gray : The minesweeper had to go first and clear all the mines so the other landing craft, the assault boats and the ships that were coming in would be able to go into the beachhead without getting in too much trouble.ĭennis Goodwin : The people just cleaning their rifles, sharpening up their bayonets and their knives making sure everything was in working order and your equipment was all good. John Hall : We were getting on ship and I was here and he was away down farther, but I saw him and I waved at him and he waved back and he said, "Good bye John," and he's the first guy I saw dead on the beach.Ĭharles Fox : The Channel was solid with ships. One, one was fire proof, the other was for the Graves Commission, and the other one was if you were shot and killed or blown up, your buddies would take off your tag and leave one in your mouth so that the Graves Commission would come along and know who you were. We were just left with our identification discs, which of course in those days there was three of them. We were, our pay books were taken away from us. Robert Graham : And we were issued French francs. Raymond Tanner : When we got ready for D-Day, we were given photographs of where we would land and where we had to, as soon as we landed, which way to go. Geoff Corry : When you're 19, or 20, or 21 you know that, you believe that you're invincible.Īlbert Clevette : We had been warned quite extensively that we would suffer some pretty horrendous casualties. Transcription - Heroes Remember D-Day Video In the process, Canada's troops had been forged into a highly effective army. By the third week in August, when the campaign in Normandy at last came to its end, the armies of the Nazi regime had suffered a resounding defeat, one in which Canadian regiments played a major role. Over a brutal ten-week period in the stifling heat of that terrible summer, the inexperienced soldiers of the First Canadian Army fought against a powerful enemy, suffering and inflicting heavy casualties. Many even fail to remember that young Canadian men and women played a major role in the greatest seaborne invasion of all time, the Allied assault on Normandy on June 6, 1944, and in the long, wearying struggle that followed in the Norman countryside. Living in their greatly favoured land, Canadians often seem all too ready to forget the great events that let them develop and prosper in freedom. A half century is a long time in a world that moves quickly from one fad to the next.